Hermitage WoA Viewer (JSR 286)

Hermitage WoA Viewer (JSR 286)

The Small Hermitage

In the Hermitage architectural ensemble, the Small Hermitage is a link between the magnificent Baroque building of the Winter Palace and the splendid constructions of the age of Classicism - the Great Hermitage and the New Hermitage.

To the order of Empress Catherine II, the Southern Pavilion of the Small Hermitage was erected in 1765-66 according to a design by the architect Yury Velten. The appearance of this building organically combined the features of the Late Baroque style with Early Classicism. Later, in 1767-69, the architect Jean Baptist Vallin de la Mothe constructed the Northern Pavilion on the bank of the Neva using the Early Classicism style. The two structures are joined at the level of the first floor by the Hanging Garden, which has galleries on both sides. This architectural ensemble was called the "Small Hermitage," because in the Northern Pavilion Catherine II had parties with games and performances which were known as "small hermitages." Art works were housed in the side galleries, thereby starting the collections of the Imperial museum. In the mid-19th century Andrei Stakenschneider built the Pavilion Hall in the Small Hermitage, a vivid example of the Eclecticism style in interior decoration.

The Peacock Clock

For more than two centuries now the Hermitage has been adorned by a unique exhibit that never fails to evoke the enchanted admiration of visitors - the famous Peacock Clock.

The figures of a peacock, cockerel and owl that form part of this elaborate timepiece-automaton are fitted with mechanisms that set them in motion.

The creation of mechanical birds had long been of interest to inventors: back in the Ancient World figures of "singing" birds had been used to embellish clepsydras - water clocks. In the 18th century the makers of automata tried to create a system that would enable their birds not only to sing, but also to behave as if alive, and they made them life-size. In the middle of the century, for example, the whole of Europe admired the mechanical duck made by the French craftsman Jacques de Vaucanson, which was able to eat, drink, move and behave in the most life-like manner.

The most celebrated creator of mechanisms of this sort in the second half of the 18th century was the London jeweller and goldsmith James Cox. His fertile imagination generated ideas that were then turned into reality by the craftsmen and mechanics of his company. Cox's firm produced a large number of elaborate automata, sumptuously decorated in a great variety of ways, for European and Eastern clients. Cox became truly famous, however, when in 1772 he opened his own museum - the Spring Gardens, in which he exhibited a large number of mechanical figures of exotic animals, birds and human beings. To fund the making of expensive automata Cox organized lotteries: in London in 1773 and in Dublin the next year. A surviving catalogue of the Dublin lottery lists two peacocks as numbers 6 and 8. From the description of the items it is clear that this pair of automata differed from the Hermitage composition: the peacock was perched on an oak stump, around which two snakes twined. There is no mention of the figures of a cockerel and owl, or of the mushroom that acts as the clock dial.

The history of the Hermitage's Peacock Clock begins in 1777, when the Duchess of Kingston visited St Petersburg. Balls were given in the Russian capital in honour of this wealthy and distinguished guest. Grigory Potiomkin, who met the Duchess in society, learned of James Cox's magnificent mechanisms. Pandering to Catherine II's passion for collecting, the Prince commissioned the celebrated craftsman to make a monumental automaton with a clock for the Empress's Hermitage. In order to meet this expensive order as quickly as possible, Cox, whose financial affairs were currently not in the best of health, decided to use an existing mechanical peacock that featured in the Dublin lottery. He expanded the composition with a cockerel, owl and a clock mechanism with a dial incorporated into the head of a mushroom, and removed the snakes. To create his new automaton, Cox recruited the assistance of Friedrich Jury, a German craftsman who had settled in London.

The Peacock Clock arrived in St Petersburg in 1781. The records of the Winter Palace chancellery listing the valuables that Catherine II acquired in that year include mention of two payments - on 30 September and 14 December - to the clockmaker Jury for a clock delivered from England. The payments amounted to 11,000 roubles (around 1,800 pounds sterling) and were made from the Empress's personal funds on the basis of a letter from Prince Potiomkin.

The clock was brought to Russia in pieces. At Potiomkin's request the Russian mechanic Ivan Kulibin set it in working order. From 1797 to the present day the Peacock Clock has been one of the Hermitage's most famous exhibits. It is, moreover, the only large 18th-century automaton in the world to have come down to us unaltered and in a functioning condition.

The Hanging Garden of the Small Hermitage. Building Reconstruction

In 1763 Catherine II tasked Yury Veldten with producing a design for a Hanging Garden. The garden was laid out in keeping with the classic rules for a regular park with paths to stroll on, neatly trimmed trees, parterres of flowerbeds, lawns and sculptures.

In the 1770s the appearance of the garden changed. A flower garden was laid out in the centre, while six-metre birch trees were planted along the edges.
In the 1840s, in the course of Vasily Stasov’s reconstruction of the Small Hermitage, changes were also made to the look of the garden. The central flower garden disappeared, with flowerbeds being left along each side. Blossoming trees were planted in such a way that the garden changed its colouring every month.

In the 1850s the architect Andrei Stakenschneider constructed an orangery out from the Northern Pavilion into the open part of the garden.

In the middle of this Winter Garden there was a marble fountain around which there were beds containing exotic trees, sculpture and bird cages. The balustrade of the balcony was entwined with ivy.

By 1925 the Winter Garden had fallen into disrepair and was dismantled.
In 1941 the siege-time vegetable plot was laid out in the Hanging Garden so that the museum staff could grow themselves food. In 1946 the restoration of the garden began. Lilacs were planted in it and flowerbeds were laid out on the lawns.

At the present time the Hanging Garden has been reconstructed back to the layout created by Stasov and Stakenschneider.

The Hermitage Theatre is one of the oldest in St. Petersburg and in Russia. It was constructed by the architect by order of Catherine the Great in 1783-1789 on the site of the former Winter Palace of Peter the Great.

In the Hermitage architectural ensemble, the Small Hermitage is a link between the magnificent Baroque building of the Winter Palace and the splendid constructions of the age of Classicism - the Great Hermitage and the New Hermitage.